What motivation does harm

Hello Dear

There are two types of motivation: internal and external. If a scientist conducting research, because he wants to discover important patterns of the world, it is intrinsic motivation. There is a direct connection between the discovery of facts through experimentation and understanding of structure of the universe. If he is doing this in order to achieve scientific fame, it is an external motive, as there is no direct link between the glory and the results of the study. Often people have both internal and external reasons.

research, because he wants to discover important patterns of the world, it is intrinsic motivation. There is a direct connection between the discovery of facts through experimentation and understanding of structure of the universe. If he is doing this in order to achieve scientific fame, it is an external motive, as there is no direct link between the glory and the results of the study. Often people have both internal and external reasons.

What better motivation: internal or external? Or the presence of both is the key to success? It can be assumed that a scientist motivated desire to discover a new law and famous, thanks to this will work better than a scientist, having only one of these motifs. Of course, the two motifs are better than one. But it turns out it is not.This discovery was made by scientists from Yale University. In the course of their work revealed that extrinsic motivation can be counterproductive to the goal.

They analyzed data obtained in the course of questioning 11,320 cadets nine courses of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The questionnaires were questions about what influenced the decision to enter the Academy. Motives included as external stimuli (good salary, career) and internal (desire to get military education is to be the leader, to follow the path of his father).

Internal and external motivation to achieve goals easily distinguished by the question: "Is it possible to get it some other way?"

As cadets have proven over the years? As their successes relate to the original motives for admission to a military academy?

It is not surprising that in this study revealed the following: the more intrinsic motivation, the more likely that the student has successfully graduated from the academy and become an officer. And a good officer, as evidenced by recommendations on early promotions in rank. Those students who do not have the internal motivation, often leaving the service five years later (after the Academy cadet is required to serve five years).

What is surprising, and students with a strong internal and external motivation proved to be worse than students with only a strong internal motivation. They were worse in school, at work and worse often break contracts after five years.

What conclusions can be drawn from this discovery? Whenever a person performs a task, there are consequences. They may be associated with the result of the problem directly or indirectly.

Similarly, as the motivation, the consequences may be external and internal.

For example, a sense of diligence in study - is the internal effects, and a good score for study - are external consequences. Or sincere gratitude to the patients doctor for a good job - it's internal effects, they are a direct consequence. But donated a bottle of cognac - it will already be external effects which are a ritual in our society. Looking at the people around them, it is easy to make a mistake in determining their motivation. Just because human activity has good external effects, we should not conclude that he is guided by external motivation. Maybe for him it's just a nice bonus.

Researchers from Yale University have seen that efforts should be made to reduce the influence of external effects, so they do not become the basis of motivation. It is important to help people focus on the meaning and impact of their work, rather than on its financial results. It seems counter-intuitive, but as a result of such focus is growing not only job satisfaction, and hence its effectiveness, but also the payment.

Currently, the main tool for working with motivated employees - is a financial incentive, that is there is only work with external motivation. This strategy allows you to attract more students to the academy, more applicants for the position, but that quality suffers participants.

Only motivate money just as stupid as to use a free buffet at the end of the press conference to get a better reflection in the media.

This problem affects not only employees or students. Teachers or heads too affected to external effects. When the evaluation of the supervisor or teacher is the quantitative results in the form of sales or the average score is easy to be tempted to manipulate this assessment. Of course, external evaluation is important, but when it is poorly thought out, its presence only hurts. Fires observer effect. As a result of the desire to do his job well (intrinsic motivation) is forgotten, it is important to get a good estimate (extrinsic motivation).

Way out of this problem is seen by Yale scientists to increase intrinsic motivation.Unfortunately, exactly how to achieve this, they are not ready to answer. As they say, it would require additional research. We wish them success in this endeavor; I hope these additional studies they have internal motives.

( Via )